and welcome to 2012.  Around we go again.



I've upgraded to (free) digital TV.  This venture into commercial television has been interesting for an ABC/SBS watcher.  I've learned a lot of things.

I've already watched a lot of the documentaries and (English) sitcoms on the national broadcasters.  In some cases, a long time ago and several times.  Some of the movies are old, but good - the Lethal Weapon series...ah, Mel, all that hair.  Seinfeld. 

Advertising is no less annoying.  I can tell you that it's time to worm your sheep, and apparently it's also a good time to buy a ride-on lawnmower.

I have a confession to make.  A neighbour very kindly helped me out some time ago by mowing my lawns.  He keeps saying that he hopes our other neighbours didn't get the wrong idea - nudge, nudge, wink, wink. I'm sure they won't, I say, in a slightly confused fashion.   Now I realise it's an ad. Oops, not usually that slow on the uptake.  Note to self, must make more experimental forays into the world outside.


There seem to be some no-brainers - the workout thingy which actually says in writing on the screen that the results quoted are NOT typical (surprise!).  There's an ad for an electric fridge.  As opposed to....?  I already have one. Have had for some time.   Ah, electricity, perhaps it's not everywhere in town yet.  That's the same ad which shows the fridge 'growing with you' (as you have kids, blah, blah,blah) but shows a different fridge at each stage - so presumably it doesn't grow with you at all.  Am I overthinking this stuff?

I'm having my annual at-home holidays.  Xmas and New Year - much goofing off, lots of reading books, pottering about, a bit of socialising.  I have lots of projects which are gradually being ticked off:  bit of a tidy up and a sort out; re-cover the cushions on the chairs out the back veranda and sort out the piles of stuff out there;  re-cover the cushions on the sitting room couch;  some mid-week opshop and tip shop trawls; some fairly serious woodwork projects with the help of a friend and her power tools.  And a bit of gardening.

I've started work on this footstool today.  It's a verge treasure and hopefully I'll finish it off in the next few days.

a tale of two brownies

T'was the week before...etc etc, you know how it goes.

I really like this little helper, I think he's rather sweet.

With only 4 working days between me and some serious rec leave, cheeriness levels are on the up.  Ho, Ho, Ho, in fact.


  I'm planning a re-organisation of the home front in the hols, and have started on the back and front verandas.  I found an extremely ugly but practical rack which I've drafted into service for fishing rod storage.  Each millimetre of space is hard won.  I keep thinking I'll have a garage sale but I haven't really identified all that much to get rid of. Yet.

 



 I have decided to part with this vintage Kodak Brownie Starlet camera, there are only so many cameras and so much shelf space.

Strangely, the term 'Brownie' seems to be almost unreasonably popular, and this week  another Brownie which came into my life via a cake stall outside Bankwest.  I bought a plate of brownies on the way to work from the nice ladies at the stall, thinking that given the season I would share them with my workmates.  Bad luck, people.

I shared one with someone - in celebration of one of those tiny smidgens of happiness which occasionally drop into the pit of despair (and can so easily roll unnoticed behind the couch, where they hide with the minuscule remnants of our self-actualisation) - but everyone else was out of luck. Call me Grinch.  Best Brownies ever.  Congratulations, ladies with headscarves.  You are the queens of Brownie.



There are only a very few framed fish drawings remaining, I am pleased and slightly relieved that others liked them as much as I do.  These are the only ones left apart from some of the smaller ones. I can see the floor in the loungeroom.


 
 

       















            
                            
                  









 




















Quote of the week:
'The day they discover that yoga mats are carcinogenic will be the happiest day in my life.'
Tim Minchin


Status of the week from Facebook:
'Mum goes to personal training at 8am this morning and comes home drunk in a taxi.'
(anonymous, for their own protection - and no, not one of my kids!)  Gotta love the Xmas season....

Ephemera, ephemera, ephemera - a plethora of ephemera

I finally got around to taking and uploading the pics of the fantastic vintage and antique magazines I found in an old suitcase.  Ah, happy days.....
 









 

the swan and the jackalope, a tale of Xmas present(s)

It must be close, the girl-child and a friend arrived and, in a whirl of activity, put the Christmas tree up and decorated it.  We also scattered some other decorations about.  She's placed some presents under it already.  There was considerable disappointment that I didn't have to go to work today, I suspect she had planned on a grid search to see if I have gotten her presents yet.  She may have been disappointed, I sure wasn't.

 (We'll call this one Silent Night, shall we?)

My Xmas present to myself this year was a small sound system. (OK, the first of my presents to myself!)  I've spent almost three years in happy silence - you can hear the serenity - after years of living in a house with at least two televisions on at all times (different stations, of course) as well as various other computer games, music, and portable noise making devices.  I've reached the point where I don't mind a little background music.  My avoidance of the I-empire means that I got a small CD player, although I note that instruments of the empire can be plugged into it also. 



We journeyed to Hardly Normal to make the purchase, having spied something in the catalogue which fit the bill.  Amusingly, having been assured by the salesman that they had nothing at all to match my requirements - although he didn't seem to want to show us anything at all - we were on our way to the door when we crashed into a huge pile of the very item I was looking for. (He must have had a man look.)  We made haste to the checkout, where we were asked the name of the salesperson - "what is this term?" we asked.  At least you couldn't say he tried the hard sell.


Say hello to my little friend the Jackalope.  I got him this week and he fits perfectly in the glass case, although he doesn't photograph so well in it.  He makes me smile.









I seem to be acquiring a small swan collection - this one was made in England and is delightfully vintage. Amongst other treasures this weekend, a small suitcase full to the brim with vintage Enid Gilchrist magazines with patterns for children's clothes, part of a 1934 West Australian newspaper, and lots of beautiful 1918 - 1940 crotchet and dressmaking magazines.  The illustrations are beautiful and some of the patterns are glorious.  The ads, of course, have their own special appeal and when I get some time I'll include some for you to look at.


Back to the present plotting.....

Digital TV, fish and finishing off projects

Summer is here!  In a display of hysterical optimism, I've taken the electric blanket off the bed, washed the accompanying snugly lambie, and packed them away.  I've also packed away the winter hat collection, gloves, coats and boots and lashed out on a new pair of Trippen summer sandals.   I hope it doesn't snow. Frankly, the sandals are so nice I'll risk the frostbite.

           Well ho.ho.ho. Digital TV has come to Albany and the streets are quiet as everyone is glued to their set.  Regular readers may know that I got a 32 inch LCD TV from the recent socialist redistribution of belongings.  Faced with so many coloured wires and plugs a lesser woman may have quit, but I decided to unplug everything and follow the labels.  I am the Queen of TV tuning.  Gee, so many episodes of CSI and Law and Order. Sigh.

We got some good fishing reels at a garage sale on Saturday, I picked up some interesting fishing rods from the verge and they now have reels.  There were some lovely vintage frames to replace the many which were sold with my fish, and a little 50's table.  The table is largely unremarkable and will probably end up as part of a suitcase or hatbox table. I also grabbed some fantasy books for number one son. 

It was lovely to have a weekend where I wasn't focused on the Summer Street deadline, and I was able to start sorting and clearing up all the stuff on the back veranda.  I also got to finish restoring a lovely mirror a friend brought back from England for me and I was pleased with the result.

While I was finishing off, I also stabilised a lovely little vintage papier mache tray, and a vintage stepladder shelf.  I like the tatty old look and haven't sanded  or oiled it.

I'm very pleased with this coffee table, I found the metal frame on the verge and we sourced the huge jarrah slab at the local salvage yard.  I've left some of the saw marks on the top and oiled it, its due to be waxed then it's all done. Its very tactile. The frame was sanded and treated and rubbed back with steel wool and treated and then lacquered.  I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

A bit more sorting and I'll almost be able to get to my work bench!

next stop, Xmas!!!

Wow, another Summer Street Fair has been and gone.  I have that aching footed, stiff kneed exhaustion which comes from 3 big days of craft and people.  We had a great time, sold heaps of our work, and met lots of new people.  I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

There are lots of great photos on the Facebook page, if you missed out this year, look out for us next year.  You can catch up with the exhibitors through the page too.

                                   Lots of my fish drawings, jewellery, and other vintage frippery found new homes, enabling me to see the floor in the lounge room for the first time in ages.  Most has been tucked away but I will be listing on Etsy again when I've had a little rest.

In the packing away I did notice that the suitcase stack in the sitting room is now so tall that I can't lift a suitcase over my head to the top without serious health and safety risk.  

To celebrate our success, a couple of us hit the garage sales, car boot sale and Boatshed Markets. To celebrate, I had the freshest of oysters for lunch, and I have some baby asparagus, picked this morning, for tomorrow.  And the cherries - oh, the cherries.  Spectacular! 

One of the highlights of the time was our dinner at Joop Thai in Albany on Thursday after opening night.  Its brilliant to go into a local restaurant without a reservation at 9 pm and be welcomed with a smile and reassured that the kitchen is still open!! Thanks guys, and the food and service were, as always, great.

Karma, dogma, the 10 Commandments, and tent construction for beginners

You know those days when nothing goes right?  Today wasn't one of them. As a matter of fact, I can pretty much barely remember one in the last week or so.  Of course, there are always tiny irritations, blips, glitches. Admittedly,  my memory isn't what it used to be.  But on the whole, the sort of week there should be more of.

On Monday, a quick round of the op shops to celebrate being on holiday. Gold bangle for $3. Bali gold, but gold nonetheless.  Which reminds me: email daughter who made off with it and demand return thereof.  On Tuesday, it was sunny.  To add to that, we went to the salvage yard for a good prowl.  I got a huge slab of jarrah to use for the top of a table I'm rescuing. (I'll post a before and after when it's done.) Slight sunburn.  Wednesday, a day at home, finishing off work for the impending Summer Street Fair. I'm surprisingly organised. Thursday, close friend's birthday lunch, good company, great food. Friday, op shops, lunch, yay. 

Saturday - so many garage sales, so little time.  OK, our mojo was slightly disturbed due to circumstances beyond our control and we almost missed part 2 of a killer garage sale - part one was a classic about 12 months ago and we'd been waiting for part 2.  Antique meat safes for $15 and cupboards for $10, depression-era, packing crate stuff, yum. I love that packing crate furniture. 

On the other hand, I have 3 wooden meat safes already, and two tin ones, and I probably couldn't have squeezed it into the house with a shoe horn.  I did get an old 1940's/50's map of the Mount Barker area, showing plots of land and ownership, which cheered me up.  And an old chrome Sunbeam toaster, the one with two wide slots, in mint condition and hardly used.  The holy grail of toasters.  It's not a minimalist Scandinavian stainless steel toast experience, it simply makes brilliant toast. And I have that from a toast affectionado with a fine legal mind.

Ah, Sunday.  Sunny.  Warm.  No wind. House tidy(ish).  Sorted out the veggie garden. Finished an amusing book. Finished a couple of small projects. Built a tent.  Yes, built a tent.

There seems to be a continuing demand for tents from my daughter.  She had one.  It's disappeared. I got another one at a garage sale.  The poles evaporated. Some sort of dimensional paradox in the garage, apparently.  Given the precarious future of tents in her possession, I am concerned when she borrows mine.

In the most recent socialist redistribution of crap I made a point of grabbing anything vaguely tent-like which came my way.  In the detritus, I found a perfect 3 "person" tent.  No poles.  There were the springy poley things from a much larger tent, separately, on another day.  An adjustment here, a tweak there, some re-threading of that ropey stuff in the middle, using a cunningly contrived wire thingy to help, and hey presto, a perfect tent.  And  enough bits left over to replace the poles on the dome tent from the dimensional paradox. I am the Tent Queen.

* I've been watching The Bible: A History  on SBS while I've been tapping away here. (A multi-skiller, me.)  Amongst other spurious and badly conceived claims, it said Queen Elizabeth I ordered that the 10 commandments be painted on the walls of every church. Were not the churchgoers largely illiterate? Hmmm.  NB: this what we call a Hypothetical Question.  DO NOT contact me with your views. I really don't care that much.

I'm left hoping that Anne Widdecombe MP does better in parliamentary debate than she does as a documentary presenter.  She says she disagrees with the views of Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry and others, but offers no intellectual reasons to counter their logical and articulate argument.  She's all for the top 10 but skips over the other 600-odd which were apparently the 'other' laws.  I hope Karma doesn't run over her dogma, but it very probably will.  Stephen Fry is, on the other hand, a Very Smart Man, and to be encouraged.